A university and a publisher are teaming up to combat paper mills in a unique way: By enlisting a Ph.D. candidate.
In April, the Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) at Leiden University in the Netherlands announced it would be collaborating with Wiley to establish a four-year research position focused on paper mills.
“Of course one Ph.D. will not fix the problem,” said Cyril Labbé of the Joseph Fourier University in Grenoble, France, whose lab hosted a Ph.D. student in 2014 to detect computer-generated manuscripts. “But going this way is far more constructive than resorting to empty rhetoric and wooden language, as some publishers tend to do.”
A correction to a clinical trial on a potential treatment for COVID-19 has taken more than a year — and counting — to get published. In the meantime, the article remains marked with an expression of concern that appeared in February 2024.
The Lancet Regional Health–Americas published the study, a randomized clinical trial of the effect of metformin on hospitalization rates among COVID-19 patients, in December 2021. It has been cited 36 times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science, 12 of those since the publication of the expression of concern.
In December 2023, the authors “identified small errors in the statistical analysis primary outcome,” corresponding author Edward Mills, a health research methods professor at McMaster University, in Hamilton, Ontario, told Retraction Watch. “We immediately re-ran the analysis and submitted as an erratum,” he said.
The university ethics committee that reviewed a controversial study that deployed AI-generated posts on a Reddit forum made recommendations the researchers did not heed, Retraction Watch has learned.
The principal investigator on the study has received a formal warning, and the university’s ethics committees will implement a more rigorous review process for future studies, a university official said.
As we reported yesterday, researchers at the University of Zurich tested whether a large language model, or LLM, can persuade people to change their minds by posting messages on the Reddit subforum r/ChangeMyView (CMV). The moderators of the forum notified the subreddit about the study and their interactions with the researchers in a post published April 26.
Note: We’ve published a new story with the University of Zurich’s response, as well as comments from Reddit’s chief legal officer.
An experiment deploying AI-generated messages on a Reddit subforum has drawn criticism for, among other critiques, a lack of informed consent from unknowing participants in the community.
The university overseeing the research is standing by its approval of the study, but has indicated the principal investigator has received a warning for the project.
The subreddit, r/ChangeMyView (CMV), invites people to post a viewpoint or opinion to invite conversation from different perspectives. Its extensive rules are intended to keep discussions civil.
The Canadian National Breast Screening Study conducted in the 1980s and led by researchers at the University of Toronto evaluated the efficacy of breast cancer screening in reducing mortality from breast cancer. Because the research was supposedly a “gold standard” randomized controlled trial, its results, published in academicjournals and reported in the media, have influenced public perceptions and informedpolicy on mammography screeningin several countries.
However, over the past decades, flaws in this study have come to light. My colleagues and I learned of failures in randomization, and we and otherresearchers have found other serious problems. We think these flaws strongly suggest the publications of CNBSS results should be retracted. Despite being informed of the flaws in this study in 2021, the University of Toronto has not adequately or appropriately addressed these issues.
The CNBSS was configured as two separate randomized clinical trials, one for women in their 40s at entry and the other for women in their 50s. In CNBSS1, 50,000 women ages 40-49 were supposedly randomly assigned to the intervention arm, in which they would receive up to five annual screens with two view film mammography plus clinical breast examination by a nurse, or to the control arm, where they received a single clinical examination at entry and usual care (essentially, no screening) afterwards. In CNBSS2 for 40,000 women, the randomization was between the intervention of mammography plus a clinical breast exam versus clinical exam only.
Two of the phrases in the paper identified as AI-generated
An expert in AI at Google has admitted he used the technology to help write a preprint manuscript that commenters on PubPeer found to contain a slew of AI-generated phrases like “squared blunder” and “info picture.”
In March 2025, sleuth Guillaume Cabanac, creator of the Problematic Paper Screener, pointed out in a PubPeer comment the paper included several tortured phrases. These phrases indicate AI use and occur when large language models try to find synonyms for common phrases. In Awasthi’s paper, “linear regression” became “straight relapse,” and “error rate” became “blunder rate,” among others.
The authors’ reconstruction of what the blast’s impact area may have been. Source
Scientific Reports has retracted a controversial paper claiming to present evidence an ancient city in the Middle East was destroyed by an exploding celestial body – an event the authors suggested could have inspired the Biblical account of Sodom and Gomorrah.
The decision comes two years after Scientific Reports, a Springer Nature title, published an editor’s note informing readers the journal was looking into concerns about the data and conclusions in the work.
The then-pending retraction was the subject of an April 10 blog post by one of the paper’s authors, George Howard, who called the journal’s decision to remove the article “a profoundly disappointing and frankly disgusting turn of events.”
A lead researcher at UC Davis has lost three decades-old papers from the same journal for image duplication, and the journal says it is investigating more.
Allen Gao, director of research for the Department of Urologic Surgery at the institution is first last and corresponding author on the papers, published in The Prostate.
The journal retracted the articles – published in 2002, 2004 and 2009 – in February. The papers have been cited 42, 71, and 27 times respectively, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science.
A U.K.-based surgeon who was suspended last year for conducting colorectal surgeries that caused harm to hundreds of women has had nine of his research papers flagged and one withdrawn.
In July 2024, Tony Dixon, formerly of Southmead Hospital and Spire Hospital in Bristol, England, was suspended for six months by a tribunal at the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) after an investigation found the surgeries caused harm in 259 of his patients who underwent a procedure to treat rectal prolapse.
The MPTS panel extended the suspension in January for another six months, during which time Dixon is unable to operate on patients, a spokesperson for the U.K.’s General Medical Council (GMC) told Retraction Watch.
